Guest column by Gaithersburg City Council Member Yamil Hernández.
Editor’s note: Council Member Hernández has written this column in response to a letter opposing the potential relocation of Wootton High School by Rockville City Council Member Adam Van Grack.
Councilmember Adam Van Grack is a strong advocate for Rockville, a skilled attorney, and an effective communicator. I respect that.
My own professional background is different. I spend my days working with numbers, modeling scenarios, analyzing data, and pressure-testing assumptions. When I look at the Crown and Wootton question through that lens, a different picture emerges. Option H (modified) should receive serious consideration.
In Option H (modified), the students from Wootton, which hasn’t been substantially renovated in more than 50 years, get a brand new, state-of-the-art school to share with additional neighboring students in Gaithersburg.
While the idea of closing Wootton strikes at the heart of a community for which it has served as a pillar for decades, we owe our communities more than an emotionally driven decision here. We owe them facts, context, and a clear-eyed look at the future Montgomery County is facing.
The fact is MCPS is confronting structural enrollment decline driven by fewer live births, net out-migration, slower immigration, and the growth of homeschooling/alternatives. Those trends are not speculative. They’re visible in MCPS data, state data, and national patterns.
Like many, I was skeptical when Superintendent Taylor first laid this out. I’ve since reviewed the numbers closely, and the picture is not pretty. Wootton High School and MCPS are experiencing enrollment decline. That means the core policy question isn’t “How do we preserve the status quo?” It should be “How do we adapt intelligently to uneven growth and overall decline?”
Boundary changes are painful precisely because they force us to confront that mismatch. In an environment of declining enrollment, every option has tradeoffs. There is no pain-free solution. The job of MCPS, and of elected leaders, is often to identify the least-worst options that:
- Use taxpayer resources responsibly
- Preserve and enhance educational quality
- Distribute disruption as equitably as possible
Option H (modified) does something rare in this debate: it actually solves multiple problems at once, and it allows MCPS to open a brand-new, state-of-the-art high school, provide immediate relief to Wootton’s aging facility, and address capacity needs without years of delay, all things I’ve heard the Wootton community clamor for. And it allows the neighboring students to receive the benefits of learning in a school with a stable community, rather than a holding school.
It’s also worth noting that, should Wootton remain ‘as is,’ it is not next in line for a rebuild. From what I understand, Damascus and Magruder are ahead of Wootton in the queue. Option H (modified) gives Wootton students access to a modern facility now, not in some uncertain future CIP cycle years and years in the future.
At this moment, some of the statements coming from parts of the Wootton community have been disheartening. Language about the school being “diluted” or “losing academic rigor” if students attend Crown carries implications that many of our families find hurtful and exclusionary.
Gaithersburg is a welcoming community. We are strong, diverse, and engaged. Our students should not be viewed as a liability to academic excellence. We should be able to debate policy without implying that some students belong less than others. That framing is unhelpful and corrosive to our civic discourse.
One thing I am enormously proud of is how our Gaithersburg community has responded to the flurry of proposed MCPS changes. PTAs, HOAs, parents, students, and neighbors have mobilized thoughtfully, collaboratively, and with a genuine desire to find win-win solutions. They have forged compromises and rallied around consensus. This is the kind of civic engagement that we should all model, and the approach I am trying to take here.
Councilmember Van Grack and I may approach this issue from different perspectives, but we are both motivated by the same goal: doing right by our students and families. Reasonable people can disagree on how to get there.
What matters most now is that we ground this conversation in facts, digest the data, treat each other with respect, and resist the urge to retreat into fear or faction. At our best, we act as one county, one school system, and one shared future. The challenges before MCPS are real, complicated, and uncomfortable, but if we stay focused on our common goals, I am confident we will land on solutions that strengthen our schools and bring our communities together.